The Present invention relates to the field of packaging for sliced meat. More particular, the present invention relates to the field of sliced bacon packages which are adapted for microwave cooking of the bacon.
The use of microwave energy to heat and cook foods has become increasingly popular in recent years. Many consumers have acquired a microwave oven and have learned to take advantage of its speed and efficiency in preparing meals. Unfortunately however, because the mechanism of microwave cooking is different from conventional cooking, some difficulties have been encountered when cooking certain food products. Some of these difficulties have been overcome by reformulating the food products, designing special equipment to be used with the microwave oven, specifying detailed instructions for cooking particular food products, etc.
Sliced bacon is a food product for which efforts have been expended to improve its capacity to be cooked in a microwave oven. While it is a common practice to cook bacon in a microwave oven, there are certain drawbacks. In particular, most conventional packages for bacon include instructions for microwave cooking. These instructions state that each bacon slice should be separated on the plate or other container in which it is being cooked. The reason for this is to increase the uniformity of cooking from slice to slice and also to prevent the bacon slices from fusing together where lean sections come into contact.
However, when the slices are spread out, the number of slices that can be cooked at one time is limited by the area available within the cookware or the oven. In addition, because the slices are spread out over a relatively large area, it is common to observe nonuniformity of cooking from the center of the oven to the perimeter.
Also, because of its high fat content, bacon is especially messy to cook in a microwave oven. That is, most microwave cooking instructions state that the bacon should rest on and be covered by paper towels in order to reduce splattering of the grease within the oven. Naturally, this step is inconvenient and produces messy paper towels to handle and dispose of after cooking.
Another difficulty with cooking bacon in a microwave oven arises from the fact that the bacon is heterogeneous, i.e. with areas of fat and areas of lean within the same slice. Because fat and lean absorb microwave energy at different rates, it is difficult to obtain uniform cooking even within the same slice. This problem is aggravated by the fact that the bacon slices tend to curl as they are cooked. As a result, pools of melted fats and oils can accumulate on the surface of the bacon thereby causing even further nonuniformity.
Still another problem with cooking bacon in a microwave oven is caused by the fact that consumers generally have strong preferences as to the degree of crispness they seek in bacon. Thus, because the microwave oven is cooking the bacon faster and because, the bacon is usually cooked from start to finish without intervention, it is more difficult to insure that desired degree of crispness.
One effort to make bacon more convenient to cook in a microwave oven has involved the designing of special cookware. In particular, pans have been developed upon which the slices of bacon can be spread out and which facilitate draining of the grease. Naturally, this solution introduces increased cost and clean up.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,487 describes a package which is adapted to be used to cook a product such as bacon in a microwave oven. The bacon slices in this package are spread out in the package. The package includes an automatic venting feature.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,210,674 and 4,404,241 also show packages which are self-venting during microwave cooking.
U.S. Patent Nos. 3,619,215 and 3,916,030 show packages for pre-fried products such as bacon which can then be used to heat the products. In these packages the bacon is shown as being spread out.